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Tom Reed,who previously covered the Blue Jackets for The Dispatch, is back after a five-year absence while working for the newspaper in that city up north: Cleveland. Follow him on Twitter at @treed1919

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Surprisingly, Shock

Posted Jan 10, 2012
by Shawn Mitchell

The last-place Blue Jackets touched down in Chicago with a new coach today.

They still seemed to be processing that information as they filed into their hotel this afternoon. Several players said they were shocked by the news that Scott Arniel was fired, even though they understood it was hardly surprising to the rest of the hockey world.

Such is the bond they had with Arniel, who they publicly supported even after he was gone. To them, today marked a day when a good man lost his job because of their shortcomings.

“Coaches don’t play the hockey games,” Blue Jackets goaltender Curtis Sanford said. “They’re not the ones that step out on the ice. They come up with the game plan and its up to the players to come out and execute the plan, regardless of what it is and regardless of who the coach is. Us as players, we have to take responsibility in that. We got off to a tough start. It just seemed to snowball and there was no chance of stopping it once it started.”

The Blue Jackets were coming off a three-game-in-four-night swing through California. They were tired today. They don’t yet feel the energy that a coaching change inevitably brings. They met briefly this morning to receive the news, although they have yet to meet as a group with interim coach and former assistant Todd Richards. That will come on Tuesday. They will play the Blackhawks on Tuesday night.

Today, the Blue Jackets lamented their inability to turn their season around under Arniel and his multitude of stylistic changes and lineup tinkers. If they were sometimes puzzled by his decisions, they never said so.

“You look at our record and the kind of season we’ve had and you have to think he’s going to try anything (to change that),” Blue Jackets veteran R.J. Umberger said. “I don’t question anything he did. In the end, he was trying to find ways to win games. That’s the main objective. But it didn’t happen and unfortunately it cost a good person a job.

“I don’t know that (Arniel’s firing) was inevitable. It’s hard to put your hands around it and grasp it right now. He was a good person. We all liked him. It’s hard to see a guy lose his job. The onus is on the players to play better. We are the ones that go on the ice and the ones that have to produce.”

Richard said he seeking such accountability. He said he will expect every player to earn his ice time. He wants to see the Blue Jackets to become “driven from within” and “develop the good habits of winning hockey.”

“That’s the whole team,” Richards said. “Everybody is included in that. I don’t owe anybody anything at this stage. That’s going to be one of the messages tomorrow to the group. It’s a new coach coming in. If you feel like you haven’t gotten the opportunities, now is your opportunity. The door will be open and you just want players to burst through that door.”

Side dishes

--Anaheim defenseman Jean-Francois Jacques was suspended three games for his elbow-to-the-head, open-ice hit on Umberger during the third period of Anaheim’s 7-4 win over the Blue Jackets on Sunday. Ducks defenseman Francois Beauchemin also had a disciplinary hearing yesterday but was not suspended or fined for a blindside hit on Jeff Carter that left the Blue Jackets center with a separated shoulder.

--Carter traveled to Chicago but will not play on Tuesday. Blue Jackets general manager Scott Howson said he did not know how long Carter will be out. “I can’t tell you if it’s going to be four or five days or three or four weeks,” Howson said. “We don’t know yet.”

--The Blackhawks have lost four consecutive games for the first time since March 2009. They lost star forward Patrick Sharp for three to four weeks because of an upper-body injury he suffered during a loss to Detroit on Sunday. Sharp was placed on injured reserve. The Blackhawks recalled forward Ben Smith from AHL Rockford to replace Sharp on the roster.

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